CASS News

Telescope's 'bionic ear' hears more of the Universe

New technology installed on CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope today will let astronomers ‘hear’ a wider range of radio waves from objects in space, opening the way to new science.

The new equipment is a receiver, a ‘bionic ear’ for the cosmos which catches radio waves and turns them into electrical signals for astronomers to analyse.

The $2.5 million instrument was developed by CSIRO and a consortium of Australian universities led by Swinburne University of Technology, with funding from the Australian Research Council, Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.